Hard hats and safety glasses help curb lift injuries

The auto repair industry's reliance on vehicle lifts places a unique burden on dealership shop managers to provide regular safety training for service techs, especially in head protection, says the president of the Automotive Lift Institute.

"Our industry asks folks to do something no other industry does — to put themselves physically under tens of thousands of pounds of metal every day," says the institute's Bob O'Gorman.

The organization recommends that lifts be inspected at least annually by an institute-certified inspector, and more often if they get heavy use. In its training, the institute also urges techs to wear hard hats or "bump caps" when they work under lifts. O'Gorman concedes such protection isn't widely used.

"It depends on the type of work you're doing," he says. "You see people [protecting their heads] when they're doing hot work — welding or grinding or something like that."

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration doesn't break out how many injuries occur from using vehicle lifts, and the institute does not keep such statistics. OSHA says service technicians suffered 1,950 head injuries from all causes in 2017, the last year for which figures are available.

Charlie Ayers, president of the Coordinating Committee for Automotive Repair, agrees that dealerships could reduce head injuries by requiring or recommending that techs wear hard hats. But he doubts they would win widespread acceptance because "they're uncomfortable, hot and they can get in the way."

About half of the head injuries reported to OSHA in 2017 affected eyes. That statistic, Ayers says, indicates that techs also aren't wearing safety glasses, which he believes should be required as well.

Ayers, a former corporate safety trainer, says he has seen shop employees working underneath cars or trucks on lifts frequently get hit by parts and debris falling from the vehicles. After he mandated use of safety glasses, he says, "the rate of injuries went down and as a result our insurance costs went down."